The Chilluckittequaws

The Chilluckittequaws were Upper Chinookan people residing on both sides of the Columbia River Gorge. The southern division, called by Clark Smack Shops, lived around the mouth of Hood River and are more properly called the Hood River Chilluckittequaws or Dog River band. The other division lived across the Columbia and around the mouth of the White Salmon River and are more correctly called Woocksockwilliacums or White Salmon.^[1]Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown, and Cary C. Collins, A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 27.

Wind Mountain was at the western extent of a series of Upper Chinookan villages called by Lewis and Clark the “Chilluckkittequaw nation.” Apparently, when asked for a tribal name, the captains were given the word for ‘he pointed at me’. Chilluckittequaw was adopted a century later by early ethnographer Frederick Hodge. Between Wind Mountain and Hood River, nine villages have been identified, some overlapping with Klickitats.^[2]David H. French and Katherine S. French, Handbook of North American Indians: Plateau Vol. 12, ed. Deward E. Walker, Jr. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1998), 362–63, 375; Frederick … Continue reading

Ethnologist James Mooney estimated that prior to the 1782–83 smallpox epidemic the population of both the northern and southern Chilluckkittequaws was 3,000.^[3]James Mooney, “The Aboriginal Population of America North of Mexico,” ed. John R. Swanton, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Washington, 1928, page 15, Google Books. In their Estimate of Western Indians, the captains gave 1,400 for the White Salmons and 800 for the Hood Rivers, a total of 2,200.^[4]Moulton, Journals, 6:483.Diseases included smallpox and malaria, and often-overlooked alcoholism. Crossing the Columbia River to obtain alcohol—the Chinooks to Astoria and Hood Rivers to White Salmon—was the cause of many drownings.^[5]Tony A. Johnson, Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia, ed. Robert T. Boyd, et al. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013), 7. For more on smallpox and malaria among the Chinookan Peoples, … Continue reading Edward Curtis described the affliction:

Whiskey was no less potent than the epidemics. One of many instances of this may be cited. In the youth of Tamlaitk, who was born about 1825, the houses of the Indians, placed closely together, extended from Hood river to Indian creek, and many families, not finding room on the level now occupied by the town of Hood River, built their homes on the bench above. On the northern side of the Columbia the whole flat at the mouth of White Salmon river was filled with houses. Whiskey began to be sold on the northern side, and canoes full of drunken Indians returning home would capsize, the helpless natives sinking like stones. Whole families were thus wiped out in a moment. This, combined with an epidemic of cholera, about 1830, almost exterminated two populous villages, and now there are but two survivors.^[6]Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian (1907-1930): The Nez Perces. Wallawalla. Umatilla. Cayuse. The Chinookan Tribes Vol 8. (Cambridge, Mass.: The University Press, 1911), 8:86.

In 1855, a few Chilluckittequaw negotiated a treaty with Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Joel Palmer. Chief Wallachin refused to sign saying “I have said that I would not sell my country and I have but one talk.” Eventually, the White Salmons mostly integrated with the Wishrams who moved to the Yakama—then spelled Yakima—Reservation, and the Hood Rivers integrated mostly with the Wascos who mostly moved to Warm Springs Reservation.^[7]Ruby, Brown, and Collins, 27–28.